Kabarole struggles to fund projects amid budget cuts

KABAROLE. Authorities in Kabarole District are grappling with the challenge of implementing the 2018/19 budget allocations after the creation of new local governments that has caused budget cuts.

Last month, the district council passed a Shs20 billion budget but it still faces a Shs10 billion deficit.

Presenting the budget estimates for financial year 2018/19, the secretary for finance, planning and administration, Mr Augustine Kisembo, said the budget has been reduced due to the decline in both local revenue and donor funding.

“Madam speaker, our district total budget for this financial year has declined because of low local revenue and limited donor funding because of the changes in their programmes” he said.

Mr Kisembo said 96.5 per cent of the district budget is supposed to be funded by the central government while 2.7 per cent will come from local revenue and 0.65 per cent from donors.

In the new financial year budget, the local revenue will be Shs559 million down from Shs778 million in the current financial year while donor funding has declined from Shs230 million in 2017/18 financial year to Shs130 million.

“As council, we shall do our best to optimally utilise the available resources and continue to seek other ways of improving funding,”Mr Kisembo said.
He said the district is going to review the tax base by identifying other sources such as markets to improve the collections.

“It is true we have already anticipated some difficulties in how we are going to implement this budget. We used to get about Shs60 million in the previous financial year but this is no more after the establishment of the land regional offices,” he said.

Due to the meagre resources, some of the affected projects such as completion and payment of staff salaries for both Mayombo Secondary School and Balya Vocational Institute have delayed.

Mayombo SS was set up under President Museveni’s pledge last year. The district wants the school to be considered in the central government budget under the Ministry of Education and Sports budget allocation.
In the first quarter of 2017/18, Kabarole District local government collected Shs59 million as local revenue.

Low local revenue
The low local revenue is attributed to the creation of Bunyangabu District, which was carved out of Kabarole in 2016 and became operational this financial year yet it had many revenue bases such as markets.

The Kabarole District chairperson, Mr Richard Rwabuhinga, attributed the decline in the new budget to the creation of new town councils in the district where local revenues used to come from. The lower local governments are autonomous in budget and revenue collections and sit and plan for their own projects.

The district is planning to complete the construction of Bukuku Sub-county headquarters and Kalyango Bridge in Karago Town Council but works may delay, according to Mr Rwabuhinga due to the budget cuts.

Mr Rwabuhinga said before a sub-county is elevated to a town council, it is supposed to remit 35 per cent of the local revenue to the district but sub-counties were elevated to town council status before remitting funds to the district.
“I know some of the services will be slow in the implementation but I want the implementers to ensure that there is value for money on ground,” he said.

Last year, Kabarole District created Kasenda Town Council that was to become effective in the 2017/18 financial year but has not been in operation because of no budget allocation to run its activities.

Kasenda Town Council
Budget. Last year, Kabarole District created Kasenda Town Council that was to become effective in the 2017/18 financial year but has not been in operation because of no budget allocation to run its activities. The town council is expected to have a chairperson and councillors who are paid allowances and salary for the chairperson. The councillors say that the budget cuts will affect their performance which is majorly supervisory role.

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